There comes a time when a gardener just throws up her hands and says “I can’t do this anymore!” She doesn’t really mean she can’t do it at all, she just can’t do it all the way she has been. That moment came for Kerry Ann Mendez when her husband was in a terrible accident, broke his neck and had to retire. Mendez then needed to work full time and could no longer spend long hours tending…
Who wouldn’t want friends who like to play in the dirt? Who are always learning new things? Who like to get out and about and see new beautiful places? Who everyday notice and appreciate the glorious world around them? Who are always thinking of ways to make their community more beautiful? A group of people who all wanted friends like that decades ago and formed the Greenfield Garden Club and happily had their regular meetings in the…
The view from the bedroom window shows that winter is just not giving up. Snow squalls and below freezing temperatures. Will winter never end? Oh, my. Temperature up to 64 degrees. I'm cheating a little here, but we went to Texas to visit our daughter's family and celebrate grandson's Eagle Scout ceremony. When we returned it looked like spring might be here to stayl For more (almost) Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.
This year is the 85th anniversary of the Bridge of Flowers. There have been many changes since the trolley was discontinued and Antoinette Burnham declared that if an abandoned bridge could grow weeds it could grow flowers. It was with community effort that the Bridge of Flowers first bloomed in 1930. It blooms exuberantly today, from April and well into October. Anyone who has ever owned a house and dealt with necessary ongoing maintenance will understand the changes…
It has been a while since I have been able to post on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, but May has brought many blooms to the end of the road. Old apple trees and wild cherries are blooming in the garden , along the road and in the fields. Blooming trees are wonderful, and each blossom is a delight. The Sargent crabapple could not fit any more blossoms on itself. Didn't I tell you no more blossoms could fit…
On Mother's Day we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum so I could revisit the Monks Garden , newly designed by Michael VanValkenburg in 2013. I wanted to see how it was filling out, and if it really went 'crazy with hellebores" in the spring. This is where we entered on the graceful curving path. Visitors to the Museum can also enter the Monks Garden from one of the galleries. The trees are indeed filling out. Hellebores…
My husband and I just returned from a celebratory trip to the southland. We visited an uncle in Gulfport, drove through very wet bayou country in Mississippi and Texas, and then on to beyond the big Houston metropolis where towers of the city are a showy exclamation point in the flat landscape. We were off to Sienna Plantation where daughter Kate and her family live. We had come to Texas to participate in a solemn ceremony as grandson…
The first dandelion seems early this year, an indication that spring has arrived almost all in an instant after our very long and very frigid winter. The grass is suddenly green and the green veil across the trees at the edges of our field is becoming more opaque. The lilac leaf buds seem to double in size every day. Violets are blooming in the hots spots along the house foundation, too thick with weeds to make a good…
A cutting garden needs annuals to give you a particular blossom for your bouquets all season long, but it also needs perennials to give you blossoms in their season - and more new plants next year. In my garden the first perennials that make a big splash are the peonies. They bloom in June. I began growing early season peonies, but soon added late season peonies. My reasoning was that visitors to the Annual Rose Viewing, held…